There were in life rarely, if ever, "right" decisions, never perfect ones, only the best to be made under the circumstances.

[s]he was a compulsive pessimist, always looking for the soft brown spot in the fruit, pressing so hard she created it.

In life, redemption was walking up the down escalator: stop to congratulate yourself, and back you slid.

Religious speech is extreme, emotional, and motivational. It is anti-literal, relying on metaphor, allusion, and other rhetorical devices, and it assumes knowledge within a community of believers.

Perhaps this was the secret to being at peace: want nothing but what is given to you.

Jealousy clings to love's underside like bats to a bridge.

Sorrow can be a bully.

The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon prompted a fundamental shift in the American government's approach to Islamic terrorism.

Nothing in life gets dropped without someone else having to pick it up.

Fabricating reality was criminal; editing it, commonplace.

The rhetoric is the first step, it coarsens attitudes

I've been completely fascinated with history because it tells everything about what's going to happen next because it's cyclical, everything repeats in general.

When I wrote, I felt better, as if I had remade the world all of a piece, the way I wanted it to be, not the way it was.

For me the prophetic has to do with mustering the courage to love, to empathize, to exercise compassion, and to be committed to justice.

If you feel so lonely you could cry, take the focus off yourself. Think of how much God loves you, and find another person whom you can serve today.

Any city in America would like to get a museum built if they didn't have to pay for it.

Because I'm anti-war, I've been called pro-Taliban.

I'm a true believer in prayer, a big believer in prayer.

Sabi nila, 'When you know what you deserve, you don't look back.'

They are not wise, then, who stand forth to buffet against Love; for Love rules the gods as he will, and me.

...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.